Valentine
by Nitlon
Summary: Axel was doing what he always did. He was making things. Things that nobody wanted to see. Things without hearts.


A/N: It shocks me that I don't have anything creepy or grotesque on this account. What's wrong with me? It's like seventy percent of what I write. So I figured, I've been reading KH fanfiction for a while, may as well write some. Also, there's a certain entity here that might seem like a made-up creature, but really, he's just a more fun version of a Heartless. And by fun, I mean creepy. Well, it might fail at being creepy. I don't know. Feedback please.

Disclaimer: You know what I don't own? I discovered this the other day. I don't own a _hula hoop_. What kind of a person doesn't own a hula hoop, I ask you! Monstrous, really. Also, Kingdom Hearts, that's something I don't own, I guess. But still. I emphasize. My residence is lacking in hula hoops. It feels so empty.

* * *

Axel was doing what he always did. He was making things. Things that nobody wanted to see.

It started two years ago, as far as they could tell. The doctors at the hospital didn't know who Axel really was, just that they'd found a boy shivering in algid winter air and staining the snow crimson. He'd told them his name. But they refused to let him go until he was healthy and had a legal guardian.

So Axel stayed.

He hadn't seemed to mind at the time when they told him that he wouldn't be able to leave unless he had a parent. He'd cocked his head to the side, staring blankly at Aerith, the kind and young nurse who had reached out to touch his hand.

"Okay."

She told him that if he didn't have a parent, they could take him to a foster home as soon as he was all better and that a cute little boy like him, not even eight years old yet (as far as they could tell), would get scooped up _real_ quick by a nice, happy family and he'd have lots of brothers and sisters and friends in no time.

"Okay."

But Axel didn't get all better.

He got all worse.

It wasn't his physical condition; it was his state of mind. He stayed blank and catatonic. He never smiled. And when they gave him crayons, the only ones he wanted to use were the black ones, because all the other ones were "wrong".

"Are you sure you don't want to use a yellow crayon? I bet that nice house you're drawing could use a yellow sun!"

"No. Yellow is wrong for here."

"How about red? Give the pretty little girl in front of the house a pretty red skirt!"

He had looked up at the nurse who had suggested the color, the same one who had told him a few months ago that by this time he'd have a home. And she knew him just well enough to see the hardness in his eyes.

"No. Red is for hearts."

And two years later, Axel was still scaring Aerith. He'd long since been moved to the mental ward.

But he was still a child, a nine-year-old boy, and children were Aerith's specialty.

He'd stopped using crayons ages ago. Moved on to charcoal. And now, now Axel was making something with clay. Something big, and spindly, and scarifying.

He was sitting quite pleasantly on his chair, which was too high off the ground for his feet to reach. He was kicking his legs, back and forth, up and down, as any child would do.

His face was angelic. But it was plastic, too. Behind eyes green enough to be synthetic was…nothing. He was overflowing with it, and when it spilled, things that nobody wanted to see came out.

Aerith cracked the door a little more, watching him happily kick his feet underneath his too-high chair, squeezing and molding what could only be an arm.

The creature was probably about three feet tall, maybe more. It was the color of the sky outside, damp and bumpy, fingerprints visible in its skin. It could almost be convinced to be man shaped, for it had two legs, two arms and a head. But its body was so thin, its torso tapering to hips that jutted out shockingly, too sharply. These gave way to legs with no joints, simply long bands no thicker than a thumb that ended in wide, flat feet tipped with what could have been claws, could have just been messy sculpting.

Its arms were too long, reaching past where the thing's knees would have been if it could have been human. Its hands were large, twice the size of its face, the fingers elongated and curled in towards one another like cages. Its head, attached to a gaunt neck, was elliptical, its eyes sloping pits. It stood straight, as if preparing to battle an enemy.

"Wow, Axel," nurse Aerith said, approaching him from behind as if warning _I am here, don't be startled_. "That's very good."

"Thank you," Axel said, kneading at the flesh of one lanky arm, pushing more substance up to the shoulder of the thing.

"Does he have a name?"

Axel smiled in a way that never really reached his eyes, which didn't leave his model, whose feet were molded to the floor of the room. The room was dank, it smelled only of dust, and the grey world outside reflected the ghosts of water droplets onto the floor, and him, and the thing. The rain pounded insistently on the roof.

"Yes. His name is Valentine."

Aerith was shocked. None of his other works had names; he'd seemed insulted that she should even suggest such a thing. He moved his tiny child fingers to work at the chest, pushing and smoothing to create the vaguest hint of muscle. He seemed intent on perfecting it.

"Valentine. What a pretty name that is, Axel."

"Valentine doesn't like people."

Aerith sighed. Familiar territory. "Why not?"

"Because he's jealous. All the other people have hearts." He ran his thumb across Valentine's neck, now holding the suggestion of a collarbone. "So he made a way to take other peoples' hearts because he was mad about it."

Aerith swallowed. Axel was smiling.

"That doesn't seem very nice, does it, Axel? Why can't he get along with everybody else?"

"Because he doesn't want to. Because it's easier to take their hearts."

Her voice grew softer. "Why does he want peoples' hearts?"

"Because _he _doesn't have one. So he's jealous. Because he already found out how to take my heart and he found out how easy it is," Axel said, clearing his throat.

Aerith laughed nervously, reaching out to put her hand on his back. He was only a little bit too cold. "That's silly! If you don't have a heart, what's that thing in your chest that goes thump-thump, that pumps blood all over your body?"

Axel shook his head and met her eyes. Aerith couldn't see anything there that she saw in the other patients.

"Everybody has a heart, Axel, even you. Don't you know that?"

He shook his head again. "Num. Mine's a machine."

Her face twisted in some emotion she couldn't explain. Pity, was it? Anger?

She rubbed her thumb across his back soothingly. "No, of course it isn't! You've got a little machine helping your heart, it doesn't mean you don't have one!"

They had soon discovered the fundamental problem with Axel; his irregular heart. Fixing that was simple enough. Granted, most seven-year-olds didn't get a pacemaker for Christmas. But he hadn't seemed much different afterwards. He didn't smile less, because he'd never smiled much before. He didn't laugh less because nobody had ever heard him laugh. Nobody saw him crying, even though seven-year-olds _always_ cry about scary surgery, according to nurse Aerith.

Axel shrugged, finally settling his hands back in his lap, his fingers now entirely covered by the color of wet cement. He stared at Valentine for a few moments, ignoring the presence of his nurse.

Seeming to settle on a satisfactory action, he leaned over to the vase that held his tools: pens and pencils, charcoal and chiseled modeling instruments. Picking one of the last, an implement closely resembling what could almost have been a tiny spear, he held it in his hand delicately.

He kept the tip poised over Valentine's chest. Aerith knew what he was going to do. He was going to draw a little heart there, right where one should be, to prove that it wasn't there.

He pushed his lips out thoughtfully for a moment, tilting his head to the side, obscuring his eyes with hair bursting with a vibrant red that he seemed to lack anywhere else.

And then he stabbed Valentine with his little weapon.

He pushed in and out, carving a jagged circle, right where Valentine's heart should have been. She couldn't see them, but his eyes were glinting with the first emotion that he'd ever really had. When he reached his starting point again, he jerked out the tool to view the shape, the thickness of a finger. He nonchalantly popped it out with his pinky, leaving a gaping pit in the middle of Valentine's chest.

Aerith couldn't breathe.

Axel looked up at her expectantly, smiling as hollow as ever. "Okay," he said. "I'm done."

Her jaw quivered.

"Can I have some lunch now?"

Aerith nodded silently, taking his dirty hand and leading him to the bathroom to wash up. And she would hate herself later for thinking so, but not quite bring herself to regret it, for at that moment the only thing resonating in her mind was that Lord, Lord Almighty thank God that this child was already in an asylum before he did that to a person.

* * *


End file.
